30: Hell and Hurt
by usingmyoxygen
Summary: "They can never have...anything together besides something of a romantic acquaintance in a mental institution, and sometimes it hurts, and other times Dale is sure it fits them perfectly." One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Harding/Billy.


oo1 - domestic

**oo1 - domestic.**

They can never have a house or a life or an anything together besides something of a romantic acquaintance in a mental institution, and sometimes it hurts, and other times Dale is sure it fits them perfectly. 

**oo2 - hell.**

"He cut his throat," she says.

**oo3 - between.**

He and Harding are a tangled mess between sheets and mattress, tucked away, wonderfully secret.

**oo4 - argent.**

Bibbit teases him about his newfound grey hairs until the pout breaks down his jokes and he says instead that a head of pure white wouldn't keep him away. 

**oo5 - narcotizing.**

McMurphy is the new "bull goose loony", and he sure seems like a good one, but Billy still thinks of the time the old one got up at two forty-eight to steal sedatives out of the cabinet for him when he couldn't sleep.

**oo6 - grinding.**

His chair scrapes across the floor and all the taunts and jeers are quieted as he tries to make an exit with his now-tainted dignity.

**oo7 - meet.**

"B-B-Billy Bibbit," he says, and returns the handshake.

**oo8 - ideal.**

"She has plenty of reason," Dale murmurs, drawing Billy closer, "to be proud of you, you hear me?" and Billy still feels dirty, like it's an awful, awful lie but he wants so badly to believe it that he can feel a literal ache spreading through him.

**oo9 - guarantee.**

"Yes," he answers for the umpteenth night in a row, "But be warned, Mr. Bibbit--if you do climb into this bed with me, I cannot guarantee that I will keep my hands off you."

**o1o - heavy.**

Billy sure looks content with that girl in his arms; the thought that he's going to go lose his innocence with her manages to make Dale feel both relieved and very, very heavy.

**o11 - center.**

His axis, his entire center of gravity is shifting towards the other man until, in a courageous move, he pitifully stretches out an arm to drape it across his shoulder, to be nearer to him.

**o12 - peeled.**

It is a struggle, but finally they are peeled away and Billy can feel Harding's long fingers ghosting tenderly along his wrists and making him shiver.

**o13 - undiagnosed.**

He is afraid of being too loud; he is afraid of being too quiet; he is afraid of being too committed; he is afraid of being alone; he is afraid he'll never heal unless he tells somebody (and Billy only makes him laugh when he says it's all right and he's "s-se-se-seen worse").

**o14 - arciform.**

Guiltily, he realizes this is not the first time he has thought of Billy with his mouth open and his back all arched.

**o15 - lanate.**

The sweater from Mama is still tucked away somewhere amongst his few possessions--he keeps it, of course, but he hides it (not because he doesn't want it to be seen, but he doesn't want _it_ to see _him_ like this).

**o16 - happier.**

"I'd tell her to f-fuck off!"

"Would you?"

"I would. I'd tell her to f-f-fuck off and leave me alone be-because...because I'm h-happier here."

(He is braver when they're alone together.)

**o17 - father.**

Billy can tell that something's wrong, but something always is after Vera visits; when he asks, though, it is not "the usual" that he gets back, but instead a frightened moan that "she started talking about _kids_."

**o18 - bind.**

The first time he said it to Vera, he felt like it stole some part of his soul out of him, and he wasn't ready for that, and if anyone got that part of him he wasn't sure it should be her (and even though it feels right he can't recall whether or not he's ever told Billy he loves him).

**o19 - bathroom.**

He can only remember thinking how the white of the bathroom contrasted with the red on his arms--hours later the bandages they gave him matched the decor rather well.

**o2o - waffle.**

They do like to remind you of it all the time, that you're there, he thinks. As soon as you come down in the morning, they medicate you; they can't even take a few minutes off to leave that fear and over-sterility behind to say a real "good morning, Billy," and maybe give him a waffle or something. 

**o21 - southwestward.**

McMurphy almost caught them once--almost, but by exaggerated coincidence suddenly found something in the opposite corner of the room very interesting and whistled and stared southwestward long enough for them to get into quite platonic positions.

**o22 - aneroid.**

He had been full of fucking _life_ only minutes before; it scares Dale so badly because even though the former is a cliche, some part of him had always clung to the thought that people, pre-death, were half-vegetables, dry and drained. 

**o23 - patches.**

Sometimes he thinks of them like the pieces that make him up: Cheswick, his hands, quick to tense; Ratched, the part of his conscience she has stolen; Harding, the mostly-sewn-up patches in his heart. 

**o24 - fork.**

Dale smiles at him over the table, and although he later realizes it was somebody else's leg that very accidentally brushed his, Billy drops half his silverware, which decide to do several spectacular flip-flops before landing, _loudly_, on the floor. 

**o25 - lower.**

That familiar hand is swooping lower, down his chest and stomach to his waist--he is craving that half-innocent touch to go further, lower, and send him to hell.

**o26 - searching.**

He's said it, it's too late to take it back as it's been sucked out of him, and Jesus Christ, _where is it_ in that little frame of hers that she keeps her gigantic intimidation machine?

**o27 - moderate.**

It strikes him one day how he had almost forgotten the real world was not always this bright, not always this forcibly serene, didn't maintain the same moderate temperature.

**o28 - few.**

Even if he is queer, there is only a handful of men in the world Dale Harding would consider having sex with.

**o29 - public.**

Bibbit frowns, reading over Harding's shoulder--another one about Vera, and he pictures himself in her shoes, wondering if Dale would be seen in public with him.

**o3o - hurt.**

He presses his lips gently to Billy's wrist and whispers "don't" against the bandages as if that can heal the scars.


End file.
